566 



LOUISIANA. 



BONDS RECOMMENDED NOT TO BE PAID. 

 New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Kail- 

 road $619,000 



New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Kail- 

 road 636,000 



Vicksburg, Shreveport, and Texas 248,000 



Baton Rouge, Gross Tete, and Orleans Railroad. . 180,000 

 New Orleans, Motile, and Texas Railroad, first 



issue 875,000 



New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Railroad, 



second issue 750,000 



New Orleans, Mobile, and Texas Railroad, third 



issue 2,500,000 



North Louisiana and Texas Railroad Company.. 1,122,000 



Bceuf and Crocodile Navigation Company 80,000 



Floating debt 2,450,000 



Purpose paying certain debts 978,000 



Relief of P. J. Kennedy 184,000 



Mississippi and Mexican Gulf Ship Canal Com- 

 pany 480,000 



Certificates of indebtedness 250,000 



Levee bonds, first issue 1,000,000 



" " second issue 4,000,000 



' " third issue 2.960,000 



Planters' Consolidated Association 681,441 



Total $19,693,447 



The other sub-committee, consisting of two 

 members, was instructed to inquire and report 

 whether or not the body or assembly of men 

 who passed the so-called " funding act of 

 1874 " was a constitutional Legislature, com- 

 petent to bind the people of a free State, and 

 whether or not there was any legal evidence 

 in the office of the Secretary of State to show 

 that the so-called " constitutional amendments 

 of 1874 " were ratified by the people. They 

 reported that it was a matter of public history, 

 established and proven by the testimony taken 

 in 1873 before the committee of the United 

 States Senate on Privileges and Elections, that 

 in December, 1872, and January, 1873, the 

 State-House was seized by a regiment of sol- 

 diers of the United States army, and the legal- 

 ly elected Legislature was, by overpowering 

 force and illegally, prevented from assembling 

 and choosing its own officers, and judging of 

 the elections and qualifications of its members, 

 according to the Constitution of the State. 

 Therefore the body of men alleged to have 

 passed the "so-called funding act" of 1874 

 was not a constitutional Legislature competent 

 to bind the people of a free State. They also 

 reported that there was no evidence in the 

 archives of the State that the " so-called " con- 

 stitutional amendmends of 1874 were ever rati- 

 fied or adopted by the people. The returns of 

 the election were not to be found in the ar- 

 chives of the State, nor was there in the office 

 of the Secretary of State any compilation, or 

 certificate, or proclamation showing, certifying, 

 or proclaiming that said "so-called amend- 

 ments " to the Constitution had been ratified 

 or adopted by the people. There was in said 

 office a mutilated copy of the newspaper called 

 the " New Orleans Republican," of December 

 24, 1874, in which were printed what pur- 

 ported to be the certificates of J. Madison 

 Wells, Thomas C. Anderson, J. M. Kenner, and 

 Casanave, purporting to certify the vote of a 

 portion of the people of the State on the con- 

 stitutional amendments. This publication on its 

 face omits entirely the vote of four large and 



populous parishes, and the sub-committee were 

 assured by the fifth member of the Eeturning 

 Board that it falsified and altered the actual 

 vote in many of those parishes which it pur- 

 ported to state. These men had no constitu- 

 tional authority to determine whether or noi 

 the constitutional amendments had been adopt- 

 ed; and if they had, their certificate and find- 

 ing was not on file or on record in the office 

 of the Secretary of State. 



The main Debt Committee, upon the recep- 

 tion of these reports, appointed a sub-commit- 

 tee to draft an ordinance to be submitted to 

 the Convention based on the reports of the 

 sub-committees, and recommending the pay- 

 ment of about $4,000,000 of the debt. This 

 ordinance was prepared and endorsed by a 

 majority of the main committee, and presented 

 with a report to the Convention. At the same 

 time a report from the dissenting minority of 

 seven was also presented. The majority say in 

 their report that they considered it to be their 

 first duty to inquire into the validity of the 

 constitutional amendments claimed to have 

 been adopted in 1874, and that they were un- 

 able to find any legal evidence in the office of 

 the Secretary of State to indicate that the 

 amendments were ever adopted by the people. 

 They then investigated the acts of the Legisla- 

 ture pledging the faith of the State, with the 

 results contained in the ordinance of $4,082,- 

 358 of valid claims. They then say: "The 

 theory or principle upon which your commit- 

 tee have prosecuted their inquiry and based 

 their recommendation is, that no invalid nor 

 fraudulent debt should be paid by the people 

 of the State, and that the valid and honest 

 debt should be paid." The fact that a part of 

 this debt had subsequent to its creation been 

 scaled and funded they thus meet and answer: 

 " They are unable to concede that the funding 

 of any portion of the debt has given it any 

 greater validity than it originally possessed; 

 and, on the other hand, they do not admit that 

 the absolute repudiation of forty per cent, of 

 debt detracts in the least from the validity of 

 that which was legal and honest." They then 

 proceed to say that if the State was in a con- 

 dition to be generous, they probably would not 

 have regarded it as so necessary to invoke a 

 Btrict construction of the law and the Consti- 

 tution ; that their sympathy for a small class 

 of creditors should not induce them to do in- 

 jury to a far greater number of persons equal- 

 ly entitled to all the sympathy that human 

 nature can bestow. After expressing their 

 exceeding regrets that any recommendation of 

 theirs " should necessarily affect deleteriously 

 the interests of any other than their own citi- 

 zens," and that they would "greatly prefer 

 that all the ills that may arise from the final 

 settlement of this long-questioned debt should 

 be borne by our own people alone," they con- 

 clude the whole matter of the non-payment of 

 the debt by a reference to "the eternal fitness 

 of things," thus : 



